


Avert Your Eyes

by Esotericali (AliWC)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Characters guide this story, Gen, I haven't even seen S3, I only pen it, Swiss Cheese plotholes, just go with it, so no idea what will happen later, this is so AU, wanheda
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-05 12:51:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10308278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliWC/pseuds/Esotericali
Summary: Jus Drien Jus Daun - Lexa and her warriors are hunting for Wanheda after the ring of fire decimates their army.  But they don't know who she is. It's Clarke's only protection.*Chapter 1 has a new note re. this fic





	1. Blonde Hair

**Author's Note:**

> So I have just watched the first three eps of S3. I'm now annoyed with about half the fics I've read on Ao3 because they basically just copied the show. I'm also annoyed because it seems like I have too, for eg, with Clarke's hair dye. So I'll be doing my best to move away from the show from chapter 3 onwards. I did say this was an AU after all. 
> 
> ... Still annoyed.

Avert Your Eyes  -  Chapter 1: _Blonde Hair_

 

‘It gives you away,’ Bellamy adds.

Raven is behind her, and now she takes up the strands of Clarke’s hair.  Clarke lays back again as Octavia pushes on her shoulder, tilting her into the broken dirty seat that used to be on the dropship.

The bucket behind her is only half full of the filth. Raven had warned against diluting the solution. She has to use a piece of misshapen metal as a spout to pour the thick liquid over Clarke’s hair.

Clarke doesn’t know what’s in it.  But it burns.  She sucks air in her teeth, her lips curling.

‘Is it meant to hurt?’

Raven doesn’t answer until the last of the liquid drips from the makeshift spout.

‘Not ideally,’ she grunts, rubbing the mess into Clarke’s scalp.  ‘But it’s made with corrosive ingredients.  I had to make do.’

‘This is stupid,’ Clarke mutters.

‘They’re hunting for you,’ Jasper rasps. ‘The blonde Wanheda.’

Bellamy stands, looking around the perimeter. ‘They’ll kill anything blonde now.’

Clarke grimaces. ‘Then the others—‘

‘—the others will cover their hair with clothes, hoods,’ Bellamy snaps. ‘But you’re the one who saved us all.’

I’m the one who killed them all, Clarke thinks.

She tries to get up whenever Raven stops pulling on her scalp.

‘I’m not done yet,’ Raven repeats, her voice an octave higher each time.

Then Clarke feels as the next bit of skin on her scalp is rubbed raw.  Raven is determined to get every last strand.

Bellamy has moved away, his gun hanging in both arms, eternally standing sentinel.  Octavia has gone off doing what Octavia does. Jasper is sitting nearby, casting worried looks at Clarke now and again. Monty nudges him, and they go back to their conversation.

Finally, there’s a heavy sigh behind Clarke as Raven lets the metal dish fall into the liquid.

Clarke gets up, throwing the rags off her shoulders.

‘Clarke,’ Raven calls, following her, dropping the rags she rubbed her hands on. ‘Wait. You have to wait.’

‘What?’

‘You can’t rinse it off yet.’

Clarke can feel the liquid digging into her skin, the burning makes her nape tingle.  It feels like a hot hand that won’t let go.

‘When, then?’

Raven looks to the sky above the trees.

‘Sunset.’

Clarke sighs. ‘Have Sterling and Monroe come back from hunting yet?’

She tries to feel like she doesn’t look stupid. Like the hot hand on her head doesn’t diminish her ability in any way. 

Raven shrugs, scraping gunk from her fingernails.

‘Bellamy,’ Clarke calls, marching up to him. ‘Sterling and Monroe?’

‘They called in on the walkies an hour ago,’ he replies, his eyes scanning the trees. Always scanning the trees.

‘On their way back?’

He hesitates. ‘They had to hide.’

Clarke feels her heart beat faster.

‘Grounders?’

Monroe had blonde hair…

Not that it mattered, she reminded herself. Grounders killed. Period.

‘Movement,’ he mutters. ‘They wanted to be careful.’

Clarke nods slowly. ‘Okay. Let me know the second they get back or check in?’

He nods, his eyes still searching.

Expecting an arrow to come flying through the air like it was tearing the sky, trying to find purchase, trying to kill them all in one go.

Clarke checks.  There is nothing.  Just clear sky. And trees.

At least he’s too preoccupied to look at her caked, muddy mess. She resists the urge to scratch her neck. She can feel the tingling as the filth dries and cracks. She checks the sky again.

Not dark yet. Not literally.

 

*

 

Clarke is down at the creek trying to ignore her reflection.  She watches the fish. Some of them have more fins than is normal, but even they look bored of life, like nothing matters to them. They just want the next bit of dust that floats about them like it’s a spore than needs to be swallowed, else the water will muddy.

She wonders if the filth on her head will kill them.

The sun is hidden by the trees, the rays that manage to penetrate, sharp in her eyes.  She figures the pinkening of the sky is good enough.  She looks around, eyeing the edges of the forest warily. Then she is removing the knives and her dad’s watch and placing them carefully on the rock far above the water line. She takes off her jacket and bundles it over the rock as though it will protect the watch. Then she kicks off her shoes. 

She’s only going to wade today; the water is too cold, the day too late for a proper wash. So, she rolls up her pants, ignoring as the water catches the cuffs anyway.  She stops where the water is starting to run, where the stones beneath her feet turn mossy and grimy because the sun never dries them.

It’s reassuring to think the creek will still be here in the months to come.

Somewhere inside, her logical half resolves to check the stones downstream to see if the same holds true there.  If not, then this creek will likely pool as the dryer seasons tame the falls and downstream will dry up. Their water source will become murky and undrinkable as the rapids dwindle.  She thinks maybe they need to start a catchment for rainwater. Or create a dam.  She’s not sure a dam is what they need. She resolves to ask Raven.

She looks down at the soft velvet of the water as she dips her fingers in. They create mini rivulets as the water shifts through her fingers, adapting, melding, moving. Always going somewhere else.

It’s good to keep moving.  Her mother, Abby, never stopped and neither will she.

She pretends not to notice that the water always moves downwards.

Her skin prickles as the cold of the water permeates it, and she is reminded of why she is here as the fine hairs on the back of her neck tingle, caught in the dried scabs of mud.

She tosses her hair forward and down, her nape bare to the cooling air. Ignoring the rush of blood to her face, Clarke uses her hands to splash the water into her hair, dragging her congealed curls down into the river. She runs her hands through like a comb, relishing as chunks of toxins drip and fall. She doesn’t stop until her scalp loses the oiliness. She can see that Raven’s treatment worked. It doesn’t matter that the water sloshes and her reflection is dim and distorted. Her face looks paler now. Framed by darkness.

She rubs harshly at her skin, her fingers scraping at the spots of filth on her forehead and behind her ears. She winces as her ear is splashed with cold water, and she cleans her pinkie to root it around in her canal, clearing it of the water, wary that she is likely making it worse.

She is about to throw her head back, aware that her shirt is going to be smattered with damp, but then she hears a splash behind her and she lurches forward, her knees immediately soaked, and she twists.  She sees a flash of a hulking figure, a face covered by a skull, eyes black, and then she is hit, her forehead exploding in pain and blood, and she gasps as she falls into the water, and scrabbles.  She’s hauled out and, as she struggles to free herself, another grounder comes into view.  She has only the fleeting sight of him turning his axe to hit her with the blunt before her world goes black.

 

*

 

On that first day, the dirt itself had seemed so tactile. It was strong smelling, earthy, and spongy underfoot. If you kicked it, you left indents, and you could look back and see your own tracks.  She had bent down and rubbed the dirt in her hands, appreciating that the history of earth was present in each and every grain.  It was rough and wet to the touch. It had felt like life.

Life is kicking her again. She moves her hand first, her fingers curling, her head pounding, and her nails sink into the dirt she’s lying on.  It feels cold and hard and only makes her feel dirty and wrecked.  She groans hard, the corner of her mouth wet and she feels as the soil is stuck to her cheek. She blinks slowly, her lids heavy and cumbersome. She tries to move her hand, ignoring the smudge of the mud and the wet slick of the scraggly grass blades on her palm, but something inhibits her.  She has to push up using her shoulder instead.

Her hair falls over her face and she tilts her head to throw it off. She notices, again, that her hair is brown. It still feels like hair though, clinging to the wet patches of her skin, catching on her clothes, and slipping over her shoulders. She shivers at the tickles, and realises she has left her jacket behind. Her clothes are damp in parts and stiff in others.  The air is cold. And it’s dark. Like her hair.

She is not alone.

Black eyes all around.  Most are looking at her.  There is a fire crackling many yards away.  She ignores the inviting flames, and considers her leg muscles. They seem fine. She begins to shuffle back. There is forest behind her. Likely one or two sentries. If she runs now before they’re ready, she might lose them in the dark. But when nobody tenses at her movement, she pauses.

It’s only then that she realises she is shackled. The heavy chains coil like a snake, its fangs in her wrists, tail ending in the earth. They’ve tacked her to the ground.

She wonders vaguely if there’s a hatch underneath or if they’ve just bought their own stakes for such situations. She dares not move again. The snake will rattle if she does. She casts furtive glances about the clearing.  Grounders are sitting around the fire, some are sleeping. Others keeping watch at the edges.  Only one grounder watches her still. 

This grounder is the leader of the group, she guesses.  A female, tall, her chin sharp, her eyes narrow, her mouth a thin line. She is vulpine in everything from the way she moves to the way she glares.  

Her hair. Not blonde, not brown. Both. Clarke doesn’t know what to think of her, so she looks elsewhere. She hunches her shoulders and twists her body. Her head pounds, but she’s awake now and already focusing on the chains.  She needs to run.

‘Desist,’ she hears.  Clarke looks back. The leader, the fox, is standing mere feet away now. Her eyes are on Clarke’s hands, then her face. ‘You will not attempt escape. Else, I’ll throw my spear in your back.’

Clarke can feel as her face shadows, much as she tries to keep it blank.

The fox is annoyed. She shifts forward and drops, her movements deliberate, and she pulls Clarke’s arm, turning her back to the fire. ‘Do not test me, Skai girl.’

Clarke stills. She stares at the fire now, its bright light flashing at her. She knows the fox can see all of her, her face, her blue eyes. She drops her gaze and sees her hair again, falling out over her lap as she leans over. Brittle, with flyaway strands and split ends, her hair is hers, but alien. It’s all she has to cover herself.

‘What do you want with me?’ she manages.

The fox is sitting next to her, her elbows resting on her knees, the furs and long fabrics falling from her coat keeping her warm and comfortable as she stares at the fire.

‘You will serve Heda,’ she replies.

Clarke frowns into her lap. ‘Serve Heda?’

‘The commander.’

Clarke knows what Heda means. ‘I don’t understand.’

The fox glares at her. ‘Our leader. You will serve her. She has asked for a female Skaikru.’

‘But why?’

‘It is not for you to question,’ the fox bites.

Clarke swallows the anger. She takes a breath and tries again. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am Anya.’

‘I’ve seen you before.’ Then Clarke bites her tongue.

The fox looks at her. ‘It is my warriors who lay siege to your camp. Your Wanheda will answer our call for her blood. Now or then. It matters not.’

Clarke can feel her veins freeze. She knows Anya can read her.

‘Your warriors attacked us,’ Clarke grits. ‘We merely defended ourselves.’

‘Your Wanheda shows no honour in her actions. Your people should have met our swords. It is the work of devils otherwise.’

Clarke can feel the heat. It is not from the fire. She swallows it down.

‘Where are you taking me?’

‘I have said this already.’

‘But where?’

There is a pause. Clarke sees Anya blink, her eyes heavy with black.

‘To our village,’ she finally answers.

‘What does your Heda want with me?’

‘You ask too many questions,’ Anya snaps and stands, moving back to the fire. She sits on the fallen log and glares at Clarke before scanning the clearing.

It’s dark enough where she is. Only flickering shadows dance about her. The snake is stark against the ground. She is alone. Clarke takes a moment as the space caves in on her. There’s a sob stuck in her throat. One thought stinging her eyes with threat. She swallows and breathes deep. She has to accept the thought however.

Raven has saved her life.


	2. A Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Violence. Death.

Chapter 2: _A Name_

 

It’s an impossibility, Clarke is sure, merely a wish. But she sits up, bleary eyed.  The shaking of her arms has stopped, and someone is in front of her. There’s a second shadow which draws Clarke’s eye.  With the dimmed fire to other side, Clarke can see him easily.

Bellamy’s face is red and tense and looking in all directions.  Clarke looks back to the first shadow and recognises Raven’s outline, her hair different from Octavia’s.  It is Raven’s voice she heard.

Octavia, she notices, is standing by the tree-line, nervously eyeing the sentries in the trees across the clearing, fortunately too far to notice them. For now. Clarke scans past her where she can see the outlines of downed sentries. Octavia’s work most likely. She was made for guerilla warfare, Clarke thinks.

Raven, irritated, is whispering to Bellamy, cursing the chains.

Clarke frowns and presses her lips together. ‘Guys,’ she says. ‘Get out of here.’

Bellamy and Raven both shoot her looks, and Octavia mutters at them to hurry up.

‘We came to get you,’ Bellamy informs her. ‘We’re not leaving without you.’

‘I just need something to pick the padlock,’ Raven adds, searching her clothes. ‘Octavia. Do you have a pin?’

Octavia scowls. ‘No.’

‘You’re going to get caught,’ Clarke hisses. ‘Get out. Go.’

‘Shut up,’ Raven snaps. She pulls a piece of wiring free from her miniature leather tool wallet.

‘Will that work?’ Bellamy asks her.

Raven shrugs, her eyebrows knitting. Clarke can see as the wire bends easily. But Raven twists the wire, doubling its thickness and sturdiness, then she follows the chain to Clark’s hands.

‘Shh,’ Octavia warns, moving to them, making Bellamy and Raven duck.  Clarke looks over their hunched shoulders and sees as one of the sleeping grounders shifts in his sleep.

When the shifting subsides and the clearing is still once more, the sentries still occupied with looking outwards, Raven begins her work with the padlock keeping the chains on Clarke’s wrists. 

They’re already raw, her wrists, from having tried to shift the chains loose for hours after Anya had laid down. She ignores the pinching of her inflamed skin as Raven works with the metal.

‘Raven,’ Clark murmurs gently. ‘Raven.  It’s not working.’

Raven’s face is drawn in perspiration and her jaw is tense with frustration.  The wire is bending too easily. She finally drops Clarke’s hands, and throws away the wire.

‘You guys need to go.’

‘Shut up, Clarke,’ Raven growls. She gets up and moves over to the other end of the chain, bending to inspect the stake. Then she has a stick and she uses it to dig into the dirt.

Bellamy is frowning at Raven’s back. 

‘Bellamy,’ Clarke says, leaning towards him.  ‘You know I’m right.’

He doesn’t answer. He huffs and moves towards Raven.  Clarke can only watch as Bellamy nervously puts his gun aside, letting it hang by its strap, so he can help Raven who is trying to lever a stake out of the ground.  Clarke knows that stake was likely hammered in by a couple of massive warriors. It probably takes a special long-handed tool to remove too.

The stick snaps. They just pick up another.

 Clarke is getting annoyed at their stubborn self-endangerment now.  She slowly moves to her knees and then her feet.  She watches the chain nervously as she rises.  It makes the barest noises, and even those sound too loud. The leaf litter beneath is thankfully wet enough that the leaves don’t crinkle. She feels as the dew soaked clothes press into her skin, but she ignores her shivers, moving towards Raven and Bellamy, being careful to slowly drag the chain.

‘Guys, stop it,’ she commands in a whisper over their shoulders.

But Raven has managed to lever the stake up a good foot and Clarke hesitates.  She had tried to look at the stake earlier, but Anya and then the sentries, alerted by the noise of her chain clinking, had all glared at her until she had backed off, one even going so far as she shove her back with his foot. Her breast was still sore.

Raven has another inch out. There can’t be much more of it.  She starts to carefully wind the chain up off the ground.

This is dumb, she notes vaguely, but Bellamy nods at her, his eyes silently warning her that Raven nearly has it so she continues.

When Raven tosses the stake aside, Clarke has a second to note that it’s easily a yard long, then Raven is picking up the end of the chain and Bellamy is taking up the defensive, swinging his gun back in place and backing up behind them. Clarke follows Raven back to Octavia and Octavia steals into the forest like a shadow.

Outside the clearing, Clarke sees Sterling and Monroe move out from the sides, their guns dropping.  She realises they’ve been prepared to gun anyone down should things go wrong. Raven shoves the rest of the chain into Clarke’s hands, and brings out her walkie as they all run.

‘Not yet,’ Clarke calls softly.

Raven rolls her eyes. ‘I know. I know, let’s go.’

 

*

 

Clarke wraps the length of chain several times over her shoulders once the clinking no longer matters, and speed becomes the priority.  She knows Octavia’s handiwork won’t go unnoticed for long. They need to be out of these woods within the hour. Even so, she is slow as her bound hands inhibit her ability to run.  She tells Bellamy and Raven to scatter and that she’ll meet them. Sterling and Monroe are roving about the path ahead, ducking behind trunks to check the way is clear.  Octavia is already lost to the dark ahead, a born scout.

Raven drops back, grimly ignoring her, and Bellamy moves off through the trees far enough that he can scan for dangers on the outer perimeter of their path.  Clarke pinches her lips together, resisting the desire to snap at them. She focuses on her breathing instead.

Clarke is suddenly face down in the leaf litter, her upper back hit from behind, shocking her. She turns, her eyes wide, her heart beating erratically, and sees Anya above her. The fox yells something in Trigedasleng and grounders charge past them. Clarke shifts again, leaning on her arms.

‘Run!’ she yells. She sees as Bellamy and Raven have already seen the danger and are fleeing backwards, stumbling, and shooting. Sterling and Monroe, indistinct shadows up ahead, have looked back, but then they’re gone, and Clarke hopes it’s enough.

Clarke is being hauled up, but she turns and hits Anya on the side of the head with her chained hands and Anya is winded. She kicks her stomach and then turns to run, heading for a grounder getting dangerously close to her friends. There’s a sound of a whir on the air and thud and thunk and she thinks she should check what that is, but the grounder is right in front of her and she leaps at him.

She falls to the ground, her arms yanked painfully, and the chain raveled on her shoulders hits her head as she falls and it becomes taut. She looks up from the ground and gapes at the knife stuck in the tree holding a link of chain to its trunk.

Clarke looks back; Anya is striding to her, her eyes dim, the black hiding her glare, and Clarke scrambles to her feet. She grabs at the knife but a hollow chuckle of disbelief escapes when it won’t budge.

‘Weak,’ Anya snaps and pushes her aside, then pins Clarke to the trunk and scans her warriors.

Clarke can feel pools of relief threatening to take her feet out from under her as she realises there’s no sign of Bellamy and Raven. But then the grounders are dragging somebody back to Anya, and Clarke struggles, but Anya gives her another shove.

‘Sterling,’ she cries, but the boy is too busy fighting against the grounders, and then they throw him to Anya’s feet.

Anya glares upon him.

‘The others?’ she asks her men in Trigedasleng.

One of the grounders shakes their head. He replies in kind. ‘We will capture them.’

‘No,’ Anya says. Clarke is oblivious to what they’ve said but she can guess.

‘Please,’ she begs. ‘Let him go, don’t hurt him.’

‘Silence,’ Anya growls. She kicks Sterling’s foot. ‘You. If you wish to live, you will tell me what I wish to know.’

He refuses to look up, even to look at Clarke.

‘What name do they call your Wanheda?’

Clarke gasps and Anya snaps her eyes to her. She doesn’t know why Anya then turns back to Sterling. There is no doubt in Clarke’s mind that Anya knows she could question Clarke, but she doesn’t, and Clarke wonders why.

‘Boy!’ Anya calls, and kicks his foot again. ‘What do they call her?’

Sterling is careful not to look at Clarke, but she sees his eyes flit to her feet anyway.

‘I don’t know,’ he bites out firmly.

Anya gives the grounder above him a nod, and Clarke lunges, futile against Anya’s hold. The grounder bends, a knife glinting.

‘No, wait,’ she tries. ‘I’ll tell you. Let him go.’

Anya gives her a look and tilts her chin slightly, waiting.

‘You have to let him go first,’ Clarke declares, staring into Anya’s eyes.

Anya smirks, and nods to the grounder again. The grounder yanks Sterling’s head back, the knife against his throat.

‘Clarke!’ Clarke yells. ‘It’s Clarke. Let him go.’

Anya’s mouth sets into a grim satisfaction, then she yanks the knife pinning the chain from the tree and, with fingernails digging into Clarke’s arm until she bleeds, she hauls Clarke upright, and they start moving back down the forest path, Clarke stumbling and wincing.

Clarke manages to look back to give Sterling a last glance.  She isn’t sure if she wants to thank him when he should have protected himself. But she suspects even if he had told Anya her name, they would be doing what they’re doing now.  She watches with a guttural cry as they slit his throat behind her.

‘Why?’ she yells as she shoves at Anya, but Anya yanks her back, her hand containing more strength than Clarke can feel in her entire body. ‘You got your answer!’

‘He did not supply it,’ Anya replies simply.

Clarke attacks her, attempting to use her weight, her elbows, the chain clump on her wrists, but again Anya easily holds her at bay.  Clarke’s sleeve, where Anya is gripping her is starting to show small patches of red.

They don’t stop this time, even when they reach the horses in the clearing.  Clarke is forced to follow her chain on foot, the other end firmly secured by Anya, the horses hooves occasionally kicking dirt back at her.  It’s not until the sky begins to lighten that Clarke finds herself struggling to keep her eyes open, the adrenaline, shock, and anger finally fading from her bones.

 


	3. Inside

She can feel the fever of her sleep suffocating her.  She pushes a weight off herself and kicks out. A hand clamps on her arm, and she pushes it away, opening her eyes to a blurry scene. After blinking a few times, and a shuffle backwards, away from the presence, she can see she’s in a large tent. Anya’s face swims into view, her glower stealing Clarke’s attention.

‘Where am I?’ she gasps, keeping space between herself and the unknown with a mere hand.

Anya snatches her hand down by dragging on the chain hanging from her wrist and she hauls Clarke back to the furs on which she’d been sleeping.

‘Stay,’ Anya snarls. ‘Nyko says you must rest.’

Clarke ignores her own protests and the questions that bubble in her throat.  She can see a hearth, the fire crackling in it, and other beds. A grounder looks at her from one, where he sits, sharpening his knife. The snick as the stone slides on the knife’s edge is almost lost in the hissing of the flames.

‘Where am I?’ she asks again.

Anya is sitting back now, leaning upon a support pole. ‘TonDC. The community tent. You will be moved once you are trained.’

‘Moved?’

‘Taken before Heda.’

Clarke realises she is breathing too quickly.  She looks back to the fire, and moves to her feet.  Anya starts to rise, ready to put her down again, and Clarke quickly crouches, putting up a hand in surrender.

‘I just need to – I just need a moment,’ Clarke explains softly. She puts a knee down, and wraps her arms around the other, scanning the tent.  It is dark outside.  She can hear the sounds of a camp, some jeers and laughter and more fire, the pops and crackles as things are thrown into it.  She knows the camp is a big one.  Maybe not just a camp.  Maybe it’s a village, she thinks as she sees small darting shadows passing by the tent. _Children_.

Clarke looks at Anya.  The warrior is staring upon her, her eyes black, her face calm, her hair flowing in soft copper waves from dark roots. Her elbows are wedging her knees, her ankles straight, her feet pressed to the floor. She is a spring, Clarke realises; relaxed but ready to go.

_Potential energy_ , Clarke thinks, remembering her science teacher’s drone. 

Clarke frees her own stance, falling back to the furs, her knees bent. She sees another shadow pass the tent through the thin patchwork skins.

‘You said something about training?’ she asks, her eyes still on the fabric that presents as a barrier to the outside.  She almost misses the cold, the dark, the unknown.

‘You must undergo training before you are allowed near Heda.’

‘What kind of training?’

‘What to do,’ Anya says. ‘What _not_ to do.’

‘I think saying don’t attack the commander or you’ll die would cover it,’ Clarke says bitterly.

‘Do you know how to light the coals for the warm bath?’

‘What?’

Anya returns Clarke’s surprised gaze. She nods. ‘That is something you will need to know.’

Clarke frowns. ‘There’s a village here?  This is a village, isn’t it?’

Anya takes a moment before allowing a nod.

‘So why me? Heda probably has ten servants.’

‘And you will be servant number eleven,’ Anya says harshly. ‘All Heda’s servants need to know how to oblige the Heda.’

Clarke shakes her head, her eyebrows knitted. ‘It makes no sense.’

‘It is not for you to question the Heda’s orders.’

Clarke looks at Anya sharply. ‘You don’t know either, do you?’

Anya glowers. ‘It is not for me to question.’

Clarke stills. She knows she won’t receive any further answers from Anya. She can see the increasingly irritability in the warrior, how her knuckles are tightening, her glower deepening, and her eyes boring into Clarke’s temple.

‘May I see her?’ Clarke finally asks. ‘The Heda?’

‘You will,’ Anya mutters. ‘Once you are informed of the protocols.’

‘Tell me now.’

Anya moves her gaze off Clarke now and Clarke knows the conversation is ending.

‘Sleep,’ Anya orders. ‘You will learn tomorrow.’

Clarke sighs and shifts until her legs are crossed and she runs a hand through the furs, her thoughts absent from the sensations.  Anya must sense her deep thoughts because when she stands she glares back down at Clarke.

‘My scouts stayed behind to keep an eye on your friends,’ she informs her with a smirk. ‘They have lost our trail. They have given up. You cannot hope for something so daft as a rescue.’

Clarke can feel the anguish and knows Anya can see it.  There’s a grim relief too, in knowing her friends will at least survive the night now.

‘Sleep,’ Anya orders again.

 

*

 

Anya isn’t far. Clarke knows that because she can hear her voice as she speaks to random people in Trigedasleng. She’s come in a few times to check on Clarke, and though Clarke hasn’t laid down to sleep as ordered, she seems satisfied that Clarke is still on her assigned furs. The man from before has gone, and Clarke is left to wonder if it had been Nyko, but she doubts it. Others come in and out, ignoring her, putting spears and tools aside and checking on the hearth. One mother had entered with a son asleep in her arms and disappeared around the side, through one of the inner tent flaps, and Clarke can hear as a hymn is sung and the boy murmurs sleepily.

Clarke has long since taken stock of her situation. Unlike last time, her chain is secured with a lock at the other end, around one of the poles. Unless she has something suitable and a newfound skill in picking locks, she’s not going anywhere.

She wonders again why Anya isn’t questioning her on all she knows. Maybe that’s a pleasure being left to Heda, she thinks bitterly. 

When the revelry outside begins to quieten, punctured only by the occasional rowdy noises of males with something to prove followed by the sharp rebukes of sentries, Clarke knows the night is winding down. She watches as more grounders find their way to one of the many fur piles in the communal tent.  She’s in a far corner, a pocket really, and Clarke knows Anya has put her here on purpose; within view but out of the way.

When a few of the nastier looking grounders glare at her and form clusters, sitting on their furs, their growls directed at her amidst dim conversations, Clarke stops fidgeting with the scant trinkets around her, a stick she’d been twirling, the fur beneath her, a piece of string twined around two fingers, and she goes still.  She wonders if Anya will return soon. As much as the warrior offended her as a clear enemy, she knew she was safer with the familiar glowering shadow.

One of the men from the angry clusters rises, and Clarke works hard not to swallow.  She stares at the chain around her wrists, and desperately wonders if can defend herself with just the length of metal. She knows she can at least fight back. Being hopelessly outnumbered and with her only weapon secured at the other end isn’t giving her much hope however.  She tenses as the heavy steps of the man nears, and she prepares herself. 

_Potential energy_ , she thinks, and she imagines it pooling in her arms and legs.

The grounder has massive shoulders, a scraggly beard, braided hair falling over his shoulders, and black tattoos on the thick skin of his face and forehead. He sneers at her and brings out a hand to grab Clarke by her hair, and despite her diverted fascination for the details of his character, Clarke jumps back and onto her feet, her hands wrapping around the chain.

The noise of the tent subsides as people still, and she knows her stance, her face, the determined set of her jaw and her narrowed eyes are an invitation for trouble.  The man chuckles as he rises to his full height, his hair brushing the fabric roof of the tent, and Clarke wonders if their fight will bring down the foundations of the tent. Her mind races as she thinks of the increased hate and irritability of its residents towards her.  She knows they’ll hate her anyway, and she raises the chain, its links clinking threateningly.

He’s still sneering when he is hit from behind, and when he’s on the ground, a knife at his throat, only then does the humour die in his eyes.  Anya is glaring down at him, teasing the skin under his chin with the sharp point of her blade.  Her hair falls down over her shoulder and he is frozen, staring.

He finally gulps and mutters something in Trigedasleng and Anya takes a moment before she snarls at him and removes the blade, straightening. She moves over his sprawled legs to stand between him and Clarke and watches him as he scrambles away.

The other grounders in the tent have been watching, but none seem shocked or bothered. They resume their own activities, and Anya turns to her.  Clarke is still standing in the corner, her hands wrung white, and the chain quivering softly as she shakes, the adrenaline in her blood not allowing the dissolved situation to register.

‘You are safe,’ Anya informs her, and she bends back towards the tent flap, picking up a tray.

Clarke sees food, steam rising from a bowl, and bread and her mouth is salivating before her blood is even cool.  Anya places the tray down by her furs and then crosses her arms.

‘Sit. Eat.’

Clarke finally blinks and scans the grounder who is now sitting with his fellows in silence, his back turned upon her.  She knows he isn’t listening to the others.  He has lost face to Anya, and Clarke knows he’ll blame her.  She can tell by his straight tense back that he is thinking of revenge.  But she swallows and nods to Anya before settling back on her knees.  She sees Anya drop to a pile of empty furs not far from hers and realises the warrior is settling for the night.

It is a strange relief.


End file.
